Geekfest 2011

Melissa Lyttle and APAD put on a great get together at the Glob on the other side of the tracks in Denver CO… For more info on APAD go here.

This is from their blog: GeekFest. The most frequently asked question is “what is it?!”

Well, it’s the best little photo conference with the worst, geekiest name out there. Every year, it’s suggested that we need to do something about the name, but in the end, it kind of fits. The name actually started as a joke, in reference to a group of geeks who’s all come together to geek out about photography. (If anyone has a better name though, I’m all ears!)

The first one was in DC with about 10 of us crammed into David Holloway’s basement. APAD was in its infancy and we all just wanted to put faces with names, so we devised a plan to get together for a meetup. We did a shootout on the Mall for the Fourth of July festivities, and talked photo all weekend. It was awesome and intimate and invigorating to know that there were some like minds out there.

From there it went to Fort Lauderdale, where we got about a dozen people, sleeping head to toe in every room of my small studio apartment, including two in the kitchen and one in the bathtub. I worked at the Sun-Sentinel then, and decided it’d be awesome to have some of my amazingly inspiring coworkers, like Angel Valentin and Mike Stocker speak to our small group. It also allowed me to approach Lisa Krantz, who I didn’t know at the time outside of her badass work at the Naples Daily News (about 2 hours from me, right across Alligator Alley). I emailed her, explained my mad photo crush, and asked her if she’d come share her work with us and hang out for the weekend. She’s been one of my best friends and still one of my biggest sources of inspiration since.

From there we’ve taken it on the road to Austin, Chicago, Portland and then found a homebase for the last three years in St. Petersburg, Fla. (where I work now, and where we have an awesome photo community and a great accommodating town).

OK… so this is where it got a little weird… Ben Rasmussen was talking and a policeman entered the room asking for Kevin Martin, photo editor at the San Antonio Express-News. Kevin thought something bad must have happened, but then the policeman started taking his clothes off. I honestly still don’t know exactly why this happened.

John Moore, just back from Afghanistan, gave a moving talk about Benazir Bhutto’s death, being replaced in Libya by Chris Hondros etc…

Publications

Random Journal Excerpt From a Remote Location

Saddam

You can see how this happens… the media here is really slap dash and has an anti American/west bias… then this news gets passed thru the countryside as if they were using tin cans with string. But we have the same slant to our news—Saddam Hussein always looks like Hitler in our papers. But in Sudan and Pakistan there he is in the papers beaming as he opens new schools and hospitals.

Stock Photography

This links to our Photoshelter site. There are also individual links to PS in our galleries.